What is a Tamo actually? A good question. I'm not exactly sure. The net I made was it a Tamo? Does it need to have the special net bag? Or need to be more rounded? Require a certain angle from handle to loop? And does it need to be between this size and that size? I have wondered about this for a while.

And Medeiros, the Tamos, or nets you've made are great. I like that you used a shrub. Very beautiful finish and net bags. The flies are really good too, Thanks for sharing them.

adventureR, GraigM's response, I believe that defines what is an Tamo, however is for me the question about the Mesh of Tamo, one has to be equal to the Japanese, or if we can use that are several Western-style, material and formats, and the exact angle from handle to loop . That is my question! Thank You.Medeiros

From the fwiw department - some of my discoveries from searching around for what tamo means.

The Japanese term I generally find when looking for the tamo as applied to the fishing net for tenkara fishing is this term - タモ , Tamo. Sometimes this gets translated as 'Tamo and sometimes google translates it as ' Ash' as in ash wood.

Another term for tamo I have found is this one - たも , Ta mo. It almost always translates as ' dip net'. But google searches are weird. Search this term once and I get lots of fishing nets. Search it again and I get almost anything but fishing nets. Google's history of previous searches often hinders more than helps. Yet time and again google will translate the term as ' dip net'.

So maybe there is a bit of a play on words here. A dip net made from ash wood frame.

If I search only on the term tamo, タモ, I get lots of pictures of wood or wood furniture. If I want to find the tamo for fishing nets I have to add other terms to tamo to get the fishing nets.

テンカラのタモ枠 , Tenkara no Tamo-waku . Tenkara tamo frame. Search results are mostly of what we are talking about here. A wooden framed fishing net as used by tenkara fishermen.

Same with this term. 渓流タモ, Keiryū Tamo. Translates as ' mountain stream tamo' or sometimes as ' ash stream'. The google search results are pretty good for the type of Tamo we are looking for here.

However, 渓流たも, Keiryū Ta mo, translates weird but the google search results are pretty good at finding tenkara type fishing nets. If I search for テンカラたも , tenkara Ta mo. Google asks if I mean テンカラタモ, Tenkaratamo. Which gives poor search results. But change it to テンカラのタモ , Tenkara no Tamo , and the search results are pretty good.

タモ枠接合 , Tamo-waku setsugō. Tamo frame junction. ie where the ends are spliced together. Or perhaps also where deer antler ( 鹿角, Kadzuno ) is attached to the end of the handle.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the term Tamo, タモ, seems to be more related to wood than it is to the Tenkara fishing Tamo specifically. In playing around with the Japanese language I have found that what a term means or how it is defined changes a lot depending upon other terms found somewhere in the sentence in which it is used.

There is also this term- タモ枠 (鮎用) , Tamo-waku (ayu-yō). Tamo frame ( for Ayu) . Similar net frames, but larger diameter.

Another fun term is タモ網 柄 , Tamo-mō-gara , literally Tamo net handle.

Another very similar term to Tamo, タモ is ダモ, Damo. Looks almost the same but the first term is written a little different. Not sure what the difference is but if I search the term I find fishing nets or rather replacement nets. I often see the term ダモ in the description of tamo nets.

An example is seen in the description of the replacement nets on this web page:

Searching for the term 渓流ダモ or written the other way round ダモ渓流 , both translate the same as , Keiryū damo = mountain stream damo. I find I get mostly pictures of the round net mesh as is attached to tenkara tamo net frames. Or also Ayu tamo net frames. They seem to be the same design just the Tenkara tamo are smaller in diameter.

dwalker wrote: Searching for the term 渓流ダモ or written the other way round ダモ渓流 , both translate the same as , Keiryū damo = mountain stream damo. I find I get mostly pictures of the round net mesh as is attached to tenkara tamo net frames. Or also Ayu tamo net frames. They seem to be the same design just the Tenkara tamo are smaller in diameter.

A mystery to me thus far. Maybe damo is just tamo with an accent the same way Yankees mispronounce many words with ' i ' in them . Like Hi or five or nine.

Tamo can turn into damo depending on what word it follows. It is a bit like the phrase "what are you doing" in English generally gets pronounced as "whatcha doin'". It's just formalized, accepted and written the way it is easier to pronounce. Keiryu damo is easier to pronounce than keiryu tamo.

I suppose from looking at the various pages and images that there is a certain look to the Tenkara Tamo. A fine mesh bag bowl with a shape, more rounded formed loop, and pointed or capped handle tipped with antler. There doesn't seem to need to be a particular angle from handle to loop. But these net images I've seen are just what others have posted with captions I can't understand with the translations. I still wonder is there a criteria I'm missing or is lost in translation. I'm guessing with alot of the Japanese Tenkara flies I've seen there's also alot of diversity and personal preference that goes into the Tamo. I think many of us here in the west would actually prefer the Ayu net size. Being slightly larger then the Tenkara Tamo size. My own personel perference for a fishing net, the Tamos appeal to me much more then the plywood formed nets here in the US. The Tamo has for me a more natural and comfortable look and feel. I saw a few attempts to blend the western and Tamo nets with a natural branch handle, but in my opinion that's just not as nice. I think I'm also leaning in the direction of the rubber ghost net bag. The first Hackberry net I made has a $2.50 nylon bag cut to fit with a shape I tried to copy from the Japanese net bags. Not a great choice for the look of the net but more of an experiment. The options for net bags seem limited with the sizes available. I would like to use around a 15 inch diameter bag for the next Tamo.

Hope this helps you a little Medeiros. And if I was without a net, those nets or Tamos you made would be wonderful to use for fishing. Functional works of art is what I see when I look at the Tamo.